The Trump administration is in the process of issuing more than $35.5 billion to importers who successfully filed for tariff refunds after the U.S. Supreme Court found the president's signature economic policy unlawful, according to
The payments are being processed through a new online government portal and will include interest on duties paid across more than 8 million import entries, said Brandon Lord, executive director of trade programs for the Customs and Border Protection's Office of Trade.
As of May 11, the tool designed to handle claims on the $166 billion in duties that were overturned had validated nearly 87,000 declarations it received so far, clearing the way for the Treasury Department to issue payments to those importers. About 126,000 declarations had been received in total since the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, or CAPE, launched on April 20, Lord said.
The scramble for refunds started immediately after the Supreme Court ruled Feb. 20 that President Donald Trump unlawfully used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to impose tariffs on goods entering the country. The court's 6-3 decision didn't address the question of refunds, leaving it to the lower courts to hash out.
So far, more than 8.3 million of the accepted entries have been reprocessed to remove IEEPA duties. The court filing also said 1,880 consolidated refunds have not yet been sent to the Treasury because the importer had not yet provided bank account information.
CBP had said in earlier court filings that the first phase won't be able to accept claims for more than a third of the import entries at issue. The remaining entries have more complicated circumstances, and Customs officials haven't specified a schedule for rolling out future phases of the refund program.
Payments for some of the first refund requests started reaching importers early last week, earlier than expected.
